Facebook already allows to protect accounts with USB keys

If you are worried that someone can enter your Facebook account, you can now close it using a USB key as reported in cnet. From the social giant has been commented that will allow users to use a hardware token as extra security.

The measure would allow each time you connect from another computer, browser or geographic region you can press a button on the key to inform Facebook that it is you, the user of your Facebook account, and nobody else you. The adoption of this method comes at a time when the concern for security and privacy is very burning.

This security measure, which functions as a sort of two-step authentication (something that everyone should use), adds a layer of security beyond the confirmation of the password. Facebook becomes, in this way, the first social network that allows the physical blocking of your user accounts.

Why use a USB key to identify yourself?

Using only a password is not the safest thing to do. The annual report on the most used passwords gives us the reason. Even using services like LastPass and generating complex passwords at random could be hacked. For this reason, using a two-step authentication system is a way to “secure” your account and that only you have access to it.

Identifying with a hardware token may seem uncomfortable, since many 2FA systems use the user’s smartphone. We already know that SMS authentication also has its flaws : if someone sends you an identification code, it could well be a very complex phishing campaign. Nowadays anyone can throw one.

A hardware token, in this case a USB key, stores in it a tremendous cryptographic potential. You will have to connect it to your Facebook account (or accounts, if you have more than one), and once you have done so the device will send them to that account and only to it.